Missouri Advocates For Families Affected by Autism

We are a citizens action group advocating and lobbying for families that have a child with special needs. We believe that EVERY child has a right to a FREE and APPROPRIATE EDUCATION and should NEVER BE LEFT BEHIND.

DESE found that the Lebanon trailers were perfectly normal school buildings. OCR did not.

In a resolution with the Office for Civil Rights, the Lebanon R-3 School District has agreed to move the two special education classrooms currently being held in mobile homes at the Lebanon Junior High School to its elementary schools.

An investigation that began last spring has finally culminated with the Lebanon R-3 School District agreeing to the OCR’s terms and signing a resolution agreement on Tuesday. The district has until March 1, 2013, to submit a plan about how the district will relocate the classrooms. The move must take place by the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education visited the district September 28, 2012 and found the operations in Lebanon were typical of programs for students with disabilities.

They went on to add that it was clear students with disabilities were integrated with students in general education in a variety of settings.

Children should never be afraid to go to school,
and parents should never have to worry that their children will be harmed by
the people taking care of them while they are at school.

Forgiveness
isn’t possible when negative emotions stick around and cloud my thoughts about
restraint and seclusion. I am trying to
forgive, but I will never forget.

Forgiveness
can’t be doled out quickly when constant reminders of an offense that happened
to my child while in the public school system surrounds me.

As
many times as I’ve thought about how to come to terms with the violence my son
was subjected to, finding forgiveness hasn’t been one of those things on my
list of things to do.

To
forgive and let all the pain of what my child and our family went through wash
away—the guilt, the pain, the anxiety, the despair seems so difficult to do.

Can
I really do that?

Can
I truly forget how my son’s downward spiral of regression, depression, anxiety
attacks began? He was so little, so innocent and just didn’t know how to cope
with everything around him.

Can
I honestly forgive the people who abused my child by restraining him over and
over and by putting him in seclusion because they didn’t try to understand him,
because they didn’t try to understand his disability?

Can
I totally forgive the people who turned me away when I asked them to get my son
some help?

Can
I totally look past their denial of what they did to my son and the retaliation
and pain we are still going through today?

Can
I forgive myself for overlooking the signs that my son was showing me that
“something was wrong”, but I wasn’t seeing because I thought he was in good
hands? If I can’t forgive myself then
how can I ever forgive you?

Can
I fully embrace the struggles we have gone through to find justice for the
violence my son was subjected to at the hands of others?

Sometimes
I wake up in the middle of the night and I ask myself why I didn’t listen to my
son when he told me, “No school Mommy, no like.” He used to love going to school. What happened to make him so fearful
of school?

Here’s
what I can accept. I can accept that all of that did happen to my child,
but I will not accept that it had to happen because I know for a fact it did
not have to happen.

Here’s
something else I haven’t been able to accept. Not because I turned it
down but because this too hasn’t happened yet—no one has yet to apologize to my
son for what they did to him. Instead
I have heard nothing but excuses of why he was treated with such violence and
that they felt they did what had to be done.
Do you even remember my son? I’m
sure you have moved on with your life and long forgotten my little boy.

What
I can’t accept is how these same people continue to destroy him by using
unprofessional evaluations that make him look bad so that they can justify what
they did to him as being the right thing to do.

Come
to think of it, I think my whole family could use an apology. Shouldn’t
someone have said sorry to me and my husband for the extra stress they have
caused us, the time lost with our son and the things we’ve been denied as our
child’s parents?

When
are those apologies coming? I’m not saying I’m holding out for those
before I can forgive and forget, but it sure would be nice for someone to admit
that they played a role in my son’s regression, depression, and anxiety attacks
that developed from all the restraint and seclusion abuse he went through at
the hands of people who were supposed to be helping him?

Forgive
and forget. As much as I’d love to, oh how I’d really love to be able to
say to several of my son’s
past school staff, “I forgive you,” but right now, today, this week with what
he went through and what we’ve gone through as a family, I’m just not ready to
say, “I forgive you.” In fact, it might be a long time before I am ready
to forgive and move on.

To
offer forgiveness, if I really, really had to do that today would be a bit
jaded. It would go something like this:

I
know you are all just human, and you thought the violence you subjected my son
and other children to was the right thing to do. I understand that some
of you have more professional training under your belt and loads more formal
education than I do. I understand that
you have a hard job. I have a feeling
though that your lack of training of my son’s disability, your refusal to help
and understand him when I pleaded with you, your power struggle with my son
over his behaviors that were not in his control, and your pride muddled your
thoughts. How else did you let what happen to my son happen? How could you keep restraining him and
putting him into seclusion when it was obvious that it was making him
worse? And how did you not see that
these violent acts were starting to affect him mentally and were causing him to
regress in his academics and social skills?
You had to see he was in mental pain, and yet you continued to restrain
him and put him in seclusion. Why? Please tell me why so I can try and
understand, and if I can understand maybe I can find it in my heart to forgive
you and move on.

I
totally get that you’re super busy and that you have a lot of children with
behavior issues, but that does not make what you did to my son or other
children right. That does
not make what you are still doing to children with disabilities right. Don’t you understand that behaviors are a
form of communication for our children who are nonverbal or who can’t express
themselves? Don’t you understand even
now that restraint and seclusion doesn’t help children with disabilities and
that it can cause long lasting trauma and escalate behaviors. Clearly you
must have been overwhelmed and understaffed. What other excuse could you
give for watching my son go through such mental torment and regression?

I’ve
waited a long time to figure out if I need to forgive you, but I’m honestly at
a standstill even thinking about it. I really don’t know how to say this,
but I do think it’s time for me to say something. So, here goes.

I’m
sorry you didn’t open your eyes to see the red flags being waved right in front
of your face that my son was suffering mentally from your actions and was
regressing at a fast pace. I’m
sorry you were clueless and that your ignorance failed my child. I’m
sorry your educational knowledge of children with disabilities failed my
son. I’m sorry you never knew that behaviors are a form of
communication. I’m sorry
you refused to update his functional behavior plan. I’m sorry you were ignorant of
my requests to get him help. I’m sorry
you bullied me at several IEP meetings and made me cry. I’m sorry you
wasted my time telling me, ‘He did this and he did that but you never told me
what you were doing to him.’ I’m
sorry I waited until my son had a breakdown before I pulled him out of
school. I’m sorry you’re still doing the
same thing to other children as you did to my son and that you are still
bullying parents. I’m sorry you haven’t
learned a thing from your past violent actions.

No
parent should feel as alone, scared, worried, angry and as destroyed as I felt
the day I picked up my son from school as he cried hysterically begging me to
take him home. No parent should witness what happened to their child like
I did. No one should witness that and later be told, “We didn’t do
anything wrong.”

No
parent should walk through life not knowing what to do next or not knowing
where to turn for help. No parent should have to face the agonizing
decisions I’ve had to. No parent should have to fight as hard as scores
of parents now have to do to keep their children safe when they go to
school. No parent should be left high and dry with nowhere to turn for
help like so many other parents have. No parent should expect or demand
an apology from someone who promised to do no harm in the first place.
None.

One
more thing. When one
forgives his offender the last part of the apology usually includes not only a
renewal for the relationship to be whole again, but also a promise, a promise
to never commit the offense again. See, that’s a problem. Not on my
end but for your apology, when you make it….it won’t be a true apology if you
are still doing to children what you did to my son. You still don’t see
the big picture and that what you’re doing to children with disabilities is
physically and mentally harmful.

You
can’t help make this all go away until you take a step back. Take a step back and look at the children
with disabilities as children who need help with the behaviors that are not in
their control because right now you are only looking at them as unruly
children. They are not unruly; they are children with disabilities that
have a tough road ahead of them! When
you stop and realize how you played a role in damaging my son’s future, and
after you rectify what you are doing is wrong, then we can talk about
forgiveness.

It’s
with a heavy heart that I apologize that I cannot truly offer any forgiveness
to you. I pray to God that I can because it’s nearly impossible for me to
stop thinking about how my son and countless other children ended up where they
are today. Someday I hope to have the strength to completely move past
the pain and sadness you brought to my child and my family. One day I’ll
be able to find forgiveness. Until then I’ll be here waiting for you to
offer yours.

On healthcare, Romney pledged to “repeal and replace Obamacare.” The centerpiece of his rollback is the elimination of the individual mandate, which requires all Americans to buy subsidized insurance. Bafflingly, in the same breath, Romney promised to maintain Obamacare’s “pre-existing conditions” provision, which prevents insurance companies from denying coverage due to longterm ailments such as asthma, autism or HIV/AIDS.

The problem is that covering pre-existing conditions is expensive. In order to pay for the added costs of doing so, the insurance companies themselves insisted during the negotiations on Obamacare that the number of people participating in the healthcare system be expanded to help pay for it. That’s one of the key reasons for why we have the mandate: it helps underwrite the coverage of pre-existing conditions. Without the mandate, there is no viable way to ensure that people with pre-existing conditions can get coverage.

Romney himself once acknowledged this fact. That’s why he included both the pre-existing conditions provision and the individual mandate in his healthcare plan for Massachusetts.

When Obama pointed out that Romney’s Massachusetts health care plan was the model for Obamacare, Romney said, “I like the way we did it in Massachusetts.” But in a strange move of mental jujitsu, the former governor, went on to deride Obama for taking Romneycare nationwide through Obamacare. What was good for the people of his home state is apparently not good for the rest country.

Romney had a string of additional desultory answers and skewed facts on Medicare, Medicaid and education. On the Obama administration’s key education initiative, Race to the Top, Romney said that he “did agree” with the program. However he opposes the $4 billion included in the stimulus plan that established Race to the Top and got it going.

LEBANON, Mo -- In June, parents of special needs students in Lebanon held a meeting concerning the treatment of their children. It was led by the Advocates for Lebanon R-3 Special Education.

They claimed their special needs children were being housed in two trailers behind Lebanon Junior High School for long periods of time. They went on to add their students were not properly being integrated with other students in the school.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education visited the district September 28, 2012 and found the operations in Lebanon were typical of programs for students with disabilities.

They went on to add that it was clear students with disabilities were integrated with students in general education in a variety of settings.

And, according to an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch back in April, in Missouri there were more than 100 reports of standardized testing irregularities, including cheating, that poured into the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in 2010 and 2011.

According to the paper, of the $8.4 million Missouri spends to administer the Missouri Assessment Program, nothing is spent on test fraud detection services.

It also affirms that Missouri education officials rely on a system of "self-reporting" that assumes teachers and administrators will come to the state when they know of possible abuse.

Under this approach, the article explains that, even when allegations of testing irregularities are reported, the state and school districts rarely engage in the kind of rigorous statistical review many say is needed.

The article says that Missouri has also dismantled a program due to funding reductions that had sent inspectors randomly into schools to ensure tests are administered properly.

That article also acknowledged that Mo. education officials say looking for "red flags" would add thousands of dollars to the testing contract at a time when the state has cut department funding.

The U.S. Department of Education announced today the award of $24 million in grants to 22 states to improve personnel training systems to help children with disabilities. States receiving grants are: Alabama, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Just like Lebanon they are thinking of putting special education students in a separate building. Lee's Summit did this, too.

School leaders say once the school board leases the property, the church will become a second campus for special education students, who are currently being spread throughout the district in small makeshift classrooms -- because their only campus is full.

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About Me

I am the mother of three beautiful children. Two of them have graduated from high school. One of those is in college taking remedial courses because she didn't receive the free and appropriate education that she was entitled to. I am now paying college tuition for that education.
My third child is autistic and was forced to drop out of school. He was receiving no services for his autism and was no longer progressing in his classes.
He was being destroyed emotionally, psychologically, and mentally. He was forced to take medication to just attend school and that affected his liver. He is 17 years old. He has a nonverbal IQ of 123 and the interpersonal skills of a one year old.
My taxes have paid for an $8.6 million administration center, $12 million aquatic center, $250,000 for band uniforms,and a $15 million elementary school with empty classrooms. They have not paid for my children's education. My district boasts that they spend the least amount per student of any other district in the area. But, they will hold up their facilities to those in the much richer county to the west. We also have the second highest tax levy in Jackson County.